


Talent Search

by 51stCenturyFox



Category: Torchwood, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eyes on Xavier, Jack lets his mental defences slip, just a little, just enough to let him see what he's thinking. He smirks inwardly when the tips of his ears burn red.</p><p>"We need to go somewhere private," Lehnsherr says, oblivious, and Xavier sputters and nearly chokes on his drink.</p><p> </p><p>Beta thanks to winterhill and neifile7</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talent Search

Cardiff, early 1962

Jack feels it once, a tickle at the edge of his consciousness. He shrugs it off, goes back to pulling the rope attached to Milly's body-harness when she exclaims that she wants out of this bloody sewer right bloody now. He yanks her up and gives her the eye. 

"Did you feel something strange just now?" he asks her.

"Besides your completely unnecessary hand on my bum? No."

"I mean, did you sense anything?"

"No. No fresh evidence of Weevils down there, either. What's wrong with you?" Milly inspects her shoes and mutters a curse in Welsh. "Gruesome."

Jack looks around and shrugs. "Nothing. Just a headache, I guess."

 

He'd almost forgotten about that tickle entirely when he feels it again, much stronger this time. He closes his eyes and brings up his defences to shut it out, the probing. He's not sure who's using the tech, but they're closer this time, he's certain of it. He picks up the heavy highball glass and swirls the amber-coloured liquid, takes a tight swig and feels the burn. He plans to track down the the person doing this and take away their little toy, which he suspects is a device they came up with on Maught, a truly crappy planet.

Eyeing himself in the mirror above the bar, Jack lets his gaze skip over the faces in the crowded room behind him, sees nothing out of place. Oh. Wait though, two men in a booth, one in tweed, the other in a Baracuta jacket like Elvis Presley in King Creole, and they're staring at him.

He feels the prodding again, notices Tweed Jacket's fingers at his temple. He's concentrating. Uh huh. Well. Jack slips a pound note along the aged oak of the bar and stands and turns in one swift motion, approaches the table. He places both hands flat on it, leans in (menacingly, he hopes).

"You want to tell me why you're doing that?" Jack asks Tweed Jacket.

"Doing what?" Tweed's partner smirks.

"Messing with the inside of my head.”

Tweed Jacket drops his hand and the tickle fades. "I think you know, Captain Jack Harkness," he says, accentuating Jack's name like he knows it's an alias. But he couldn't, because he didn't dig that far in. Did he?

Jack squints at him.

"Charles Xavier," the man says, offering his hand. He slowly lowers it as Jack makes no move to shake and eyes his companion, who returns his gaze, unblinking.

"Erik Lehnsherr," he offers, this time louder; someone has fed the jukebox.

Jack slides into the booth next to Xavier, forcing both men to move over. "Now that the introductions are out of the way, let's see whatever you're using to do that."

"What I'm _using_?" Xavier asks.

"The technology," Jack clarifies. "I've seen it before. Felt it, too."

Lehnsherr cuts in smoothly. "He's not using any technology. He's got a gift. Just like you."

"A gift?" Jack chuckles, but he knows the laughter doesn't reach his eyes. "Where are you from?"

"Most recently, Oxford," says Xavier.

"How about you, Lehnsherr?" Jack asks.

"A lot of places," he answers, nudging at the ice in his drink with the stir-straw. Jack holds down a defensive flinch as Lehnsherr opens his jacket and reaches into the breast pocket. He flips open a cigarette case with one hand and offers one to Jack, who shakes his head.

"Those’ll kill you," Jack says, and the corner of Lehnsher's mouth twitches upward.

"Perhaps. But not you," he says. 

Jack breathes out, slowly. He registers, in the background, a falsetto voice from the jukebox: the lion sleeps tonight. How could they possibly know, unless they'd seen it happen, and there were certainly witnesses, time after time. You couldn't retcon someone if you didn't know they were a witness, after all. He slides his hand over his own breast pocket, over his coat, and feels the bottle nestled there.

 

"He wants to give us a little forgetfulness pill," Xavier tells Lehnsherr. He slips them into people's drinks."

"That's not nice," Lehnsherr says with a glance at Tweed, leaning back in the booth and blowing a smoke ring.

"It's not nice reading people's thoughts without their permission, either," Jack says. He leans forward and addresses Lehnsherr. "What's your _gift_? Or are you Madame Blavatsky's muscle?"

Lehnsherr gives a glance around, tips his head to one side and a spoon in the centre of the table rises above it, just an inch or so. Then it begins to spin, at first slowly, then faster, like a cartoon clockface showing the rapid passage of time.

"Oh," Jack says. Recovering, he asks, "Can you do that with a bottle?" and eyes on Xavier, he lets his mental defences slip, just a little, just enough to let him see what he's thinking. He smirks inwardly when the tips of Xavier's ears burn red.

"We need to go somewhere private," Lehnsherr says, oblivious, and Xavier sputters and nearly chokes on his drink.

 

They have a suite in Cardiff's nicest hotel. Jack selects the striped silk settee and Lehnsherr - "Erik, please" - pours fresh drinks. Jack watches, amused, as Charles selects the gold brocade armchair furthest away.

"So, Charles," Jack says, accepting Erik's offering as he joins him on the settee, "What do you want, then?"

"That's blunt," Erik says. "I like this one."

"You're one of us," says Charles. "We need you for a project."

Jack narrows his eyes. "What kind of-" and he stops as a girl - no, a young woman - rushes in with a shopping bag from the high street.

"Hello," she says breathlessly, glancing at Jack before leaning to plant a kiss on Charles's cheek. "I bought a coat. All right, two coats. And this is?"

"He's one of us," Erik says. "A mutant. He's probably over a hundred years old."

Jack opens his mouth to protest but the sunny young blonde holds her hand out, unfazed. "Raven Darkhölme," she says.

"Captain Jack Harkness. Very pleased to meet you, Raven Darkhölme," he says, really turning it on. He rises and pulls her hand in, turning it over for a kiss. And Jack's no mind-reader, not really, but he senses something darkly complicated passing between Charles and Erik and this young woman.

"I'd have thought someone named Raven would be a brunette," Jack says, fairly twinkling at her, because she's adorable, and it's amusing him, and because he's clearly getting Charles's goat and maybe Erik's too; his hand is tensing around his glass. But Jack is the one taken aback when Raven's hair flutters suddenly, as if kissed by a breeze, and becomes a glossy wash of black.

"You look striking," Jack says, and is rewarded with a smile, and then his own smile, as a blue ripple shimmers over Raven's form and Jack himself appears, dressed as he is now, in a pale blue shirt and red braces. She shimmers once again, back to blonde, and shakes her hair.

Jack gives a low whistle. "Impressive."

"That's my parlour trick," Raven says. "Let's see yours."

"He can't die," Erik says.

A pause, and then Raven's smile slides away. "Ever?" she asks, her mouth dropping open.

"Don't ask me to demonstrate," Jack cuts in. "It's not the most pleasant sight."

"Indeed not," Charles says, patting Raven's hip as she perches on the arm of his chair. "But it's why you're here."

Jack takes a sip of his drink. "Look, I think maybe there's been a mistake. You see, you've mentioned a mutation, right? I don't have a genetic mutation. I wasn't born...like this."

"What happened?" Raven asks. "Radiation? Or-"

"I don't know." Jack leans back on the settee. "I've been trying to find out. Trying to... fix this, for a very long time."

"Fix it?" Charles laughs, incredulous. "Why on Earth would you try to fix that? Do you _want_ to die?"

Raven gives Charles a look. "He's lonely," she says. "It's lonely thinking you're the only one. Come on, you know that." Her aura ripples again and suddenly she's blue - bright royal blue, blue all over, except for a sweep of vivid red hair and golden eyes.

Jack glances at Erik and his attention sharpens at his look - raw, almost hungry. Appreciation, that’s it. the guy loves this girl in her own skin. Good to know.”

"Blue is my favourite colour," Jack says with a grin. "Are you Malmooth? No...wait. Got it!" he snaps his fingers. "Crespallion!"

"What are you talking about?" Raven asks, confused.

"He thinks you're an alien," Erik says. "He works for Torchwood, and they investigate aliens. From outer space."

Raven looks skyward. "That's science fiction."

Jack wants to retort, say, _“Hey, you're blue, honey - surely you've considered the possibility you're not 100 percent Earth stock,”_ but checks his tongue out of sheer surprise; how does Lehnsherr know about Torchwood anyway? Well, if Charles can read minds, there are enough people who know about Torchwood to fill in the blanks. He speaks up anyway.

"Look. Are you sure all of your mutations have a human origin?" Jack asks. "You absolutely sure you don't have a great-great-granddaddy from Crespallion, Raven?" Jack's immediately sorry when she stands, shaking her head rapidly, and rushes away, slamming the door to what must be one of the suite's bedrooms. Erik tosses him a look of brutal rage and follows her.

"Nicely done," Charles says calmly, passing him a bowl from the table. "Pretzel?"

"Shit," Jack mutters under his breath. "Where I'm from, that’s not an insult or anything."

Charles regards him steadily. “So. Are you interested in working with us?”

“I have a job. And unless you’re planning to truss me up and administer electric shocks to my person in a convincing way, I think I’ll stay where I am.” Jack watches Charles brush the front of his trousers and come to his feet, and supposes this meeting is over.

“But thanks anyway,” Jack adds, downing the rest of his drink, feeling the little rounds of ice tickle-slip down his throat. “And uh, please extend my apologies to Blue.”

“I will. Take care of yourself, Captain,” Charles says, following Jack to the door as he grabs his greatcoat. “And...take my card. Perhaps you’ll change your mind.”

Jack glances at it before tucking the creamy slip into his breast pocket. “Don’t count on it,” he says, shutting the door behind him with a lopsided smile.


End file.
